Chapter 20. Reliability

Software reliability has been listed as a key quality measure for as long as software engineering has been defined. Figure 20-1 represents the quality factor topology as presented by McCall, Richards, and Walters in their 1977 work.^[1] Throughout the chapters in this practitioner's guide, these factors are discussed. Particular attention is paid to software reliability because of its high visibility to the end-user. Product revision and transition quality factors are important to the software development and maintenance teams. Product operation factors are customer-facing and cause the most customer pain when they are deficient.

Figure 20-1. Software Quality Factors